I've been making my way through Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. I'm currently on the third book With a Tangled Skein which deals with Fate. I never had all of the books, not I have all but the last one, but that was published like 17 years after the first books came out, so I don't consider it part of the main series.

I've also done some spot reading of Sparring with Gil Kane which is a collection of interviews he did.

Finally, I'm also reading Moving Day by Jonathan Stone. It is the story of a 72 year old man who is robbed by a con man, and his quest to get his belongings back.

BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES: About a year ago, I was working my way through “Planet of the Apes” book/movie parings one book/movie at a time. Then I got to Battle and stopped cold. Well, not completely “cold”; I tried twice before and got about 1/3 way into before abandoning it. That’s odd because, being written by David Gerrold, it was the one I was looking forward to most. Unfortunately, the book hues pretty closely to the movie, my least favorite of the original five.

In the weeks to come, I plan to read the Battle comic book adaptation (which was adapted from an earlier, better, shooting script), but there are some other POTA-related things I plan to read in the meantime. Regarding the movie and the novelization, read the paperback, skip the movie.

After re-watching the TV series, I thought I’d delve into this novel based on it… again. Yes, I’ve started it twice before, but never finished it. The first time I got about ¾ through, the second time about half. I find Disch’s writing style nearly impenetrable. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way. As I read, details of my previous attempts came back to me. First, the differences between the prose novel and the TV are quite striking. (For example, the titular “Prisoner” arrives in the Village by train. there are other discrepancies and other seeming contradictions as well.) If the novel had come first, such differences would be expected, but the novel is based on the TV show, not vice versa.

Then I came to realize this is not an adaptation of the TV series; it is a sequel to it. Then I remembered coming to that conclusion when I read it before. The Prisoner arrives in the Village again (?), with all (or most) memory of his first visit (the TV show) wiped from his mind. Did he escape before? Or have the memories of his recent time in London been implanted somehow?

He goes through the motions of acquainting himself with village life. He makes an escape attempt and succeeds, only to find out the escape was all in his mind. He meets another prisoner and must decide whether or not to trust her. Between them, they arrange an escape for her (to prove he is not working for “them”). The escape involved turning a deflated “Rover” into a hot air balloon and launching it during a performance of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. In a twist, Number Two turns the tables on both of them and he escapes!

Then #6 becomes #2. At this point, I began to wonder whether or not I truly wanted Disch to reveal who is running the Village. It’s perfectly obvious to me Patrick McGoohan himself didn’t know (or care); that wasn’t what his “allegory” was about. But I have my answer that work for me. Did I really want that contradicted in print?

Then Disch did reveal who #1 is, and I remembered I had finished this book once before. I had simply repressed my memory of the ending. I can’t really recommend this book, even to fans of the TV show. I can recommend the Big Finish audio series, though, which is scheduled to conclude in May of 2019. Now I have to ask myself again: Do I really want to know who is running the Village and “Who is Number One?”?